Off the Wire

A Lesson in Grace

Several months ago I was taking an online class. Each week we had quizzes over the reading for that week. During the week of Spring Break I assumed that we would not be responsible for the reading until the following week. When I sat down to take the quiz the following week, I noticed that the Quiz title said that it was over the next week’s reading. I e-mailed the grader and asked hmi if I had missed a quiz. He confirmed that I had.

Then I asked him if he would be willing to open up the quiz for me to take due to my negligence (and it was only a day after the previous quiz had ended. He had no obligation to open the quiz up to me. I, however, with false humility (using it as a manipulative tool) demanded in my heart that he do so. If he had not done so, I would have cried, “Unfair.”

He e-mailed me back and told me that I could take the quiz – appending, “consider this a lesson in grace.” My first inclination was to be relieved and thankful. That quickly turned to indignation and a desire to defend my position. I mean, who would have students take a quiz during Spring Break!?!? I had done all the quizzes as soon as they came on the Internet. This was obviously an oversight worthy of a mulligan.

However, this is not the way truth and law work is it? If you speed, you are a law breaker. If you lie, you are a liar. The entire breaking of a tittle of te law is imputed as a characteristic of you. Why? While it is true that God is perfectly holy, I want to look at this from the perspective of the law breaker. You see, the reason you are a law breaker by breaking just one law is because your breaking of that law is indicative of a character flaw…moreso, a rebellious heart.

Is this your typical way of reacting when you are confronted with grace. Do you wiggle and justify your backbiting – ‘I am merely speakign the truth about Sally Sue. She always….’? Do you attempt to prove your lying was merely a fudging of the facts? Do you try and make sure that God knows that you weren’t to blame? You were merely caught in the middle of an impossible situation. You see, the reason you try to justify your wrongful attitudes and actions is because you (like me) do not like the idea of grace. Could it be that grace is a slap in the face of the prideful empire of dirt that I have piled up for myself? At times I wonder if I am truly enveloped by the truth of grace. If I try to justify myself rather than simply open my mouth so the Lord might fill it, then grace is merely a battle cry and not a mantra. May God have mercy on me a sinner…